Ubuntu

Cannot log on into gnome (Hardy)

Asked by JKhoo

I cannot log on into gnome (Hardy) which I find it weird as I have never encountered this problem before. When I first install the OS I created another user which logs in OK but me as the administrator is log out. Is there a way to fix this or do I have to do a fresh install again which will be very tedious and time consumming. Any help will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

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Solved by:
Dariel Dato-on
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Dariel Dato-on (odd-rationale) said : 		#1

So if I understand correctly, the user that is locked out is not the same user that you created during the install. Correct?

If so, how did you create this user? With the "useradd" command?

Perhaps you could try the System --> Administration --> Users and Groups utility.

Also, do you get any error messages when you try to log in?

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JKhoo (stormquest2000) said : 		#2

The locked out user(Administrator) was created when I first install Ubuntu.

Later I created another user using System --> Administration --> Users and Groups utility.

Everything was OK since I added a user a month back till I encountered this problem yesterday.

Upon entering my user name and password a dialog pops up saying that user's $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored. After pressing the OK button another dialog pops up saying that this might be a bug. Pressing OK again brings me back to the user/password dialog box again.

I can log in using the other user account but I cannot use the admin utilities

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Best Dariel Dato-on (odd-rationale) said : 		#3

Sounds like a problem involving some messed up file permissions.

Do you have any other user with sudo privileges on your system? If so, then do the commands I will list below, but precede them with sudo.

If not, then boot into recovery mode. While GRUB is loading, press ESC and it should bring you to the GRUB menu. Select "Recovery Mode". Then after during the boot, it will halt and ask you some options. Select, "Drop into root shell." You will not have a graphical user interface in the shell, so be sure to right this all down.

Once in the shell, execute the following commands. Replace $USER with the username of the locked out user.

chmod -R 755 /home/$USERNAME
chown -R $USER:$USER /home/$USER
chmod 644 /home/$USER/.dmrc
shutdown -r now

Again, if you have a another user with sudo rights, then simply log in as that user and do the above, except precede each command sudo .

Hope that helps!

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JKhoo (stormquest2000) said : 		#4

Many thanks to you Odd-rationale. That completely solved my problem. Everything is running smoothly now. Cannot imagine me going through another fresh install. Anyway thanks a lot again.

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JKhoo (stormquest2000) said : 		#5

Thanks Odd-rationale, that solved my question.